In April 2010, I set out on an unforgettable railroad journey from London to Tehran with an old friend from high school. We followed the directions laid out at Seat61.com for travel, first, from London to Istanbul and thence from Istanbul on to Tehran. All told, our journey involved seven separate trains (plus one ferry) and six nights of travel: (1) London to Paris; (2) Paris to Munich (overnight); (3) Munich to Budapest; (4) Budapest to Bucharest (overnight); (5) Bucharest to Istanbul (overnight); (6) Istanbul to Tatvan (two nights); (7) Tatvan to Van by ferry; (8) Van to Tehran (overnight). Given that the Istanbul to Tehran service operates only once a week departing just before midnight on Wednesday evening, we arranged our departure from London for midday Saturday which got us into Istanbul on Tuesday morning. This allowed for a day and a half day layover in Istanbul: A good cushion against unforeseen events and an opportunity for both sightseeing and some much needed rest. Starting with the train from Bucharest and once again on the two trains between Istanbul and Tehran, we met at least six or eight fellow travelers who had, like us, been inspired to make their journey based upon the material published at Seat61.com. This narrative and the pictures that follow provide both logistical specifics regarding our journey as well as a good taste for what we saw and experienced during this six day overland odyssey.

First, I should note that for anyone interested in duplicating this trip, it is essential to have the proper visa in place prior to entering Iran, especially if you are traveling on a US passport as I was. My companion was traveling on a New Zealand passport, but since he was entering Iran by land (rather than by air), he also needed to have his visa in advance. Since visa requirements may change at any time, no one should attempt this journey without first checking with all relevant consular authorities regarding any restrictions or requirements which may affect their ability to travel across international borders, especially into Iran. Note that US citizens traveling as tourists to Iran MUST have a guide to escort them once they arrive. In my case I met my guide at the train station when the TransAsia Express finally arrived in Tehran, some six hours late, in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Those requiring a guide while in Iran should engage a reputable travel agency. Note also that international credit cards are not valid in Iran so you must have cash on your person to cover any expenses you incur while in the country.

In preparing for this trip, I booked all of the rail travel from London to Istanbul with RailEurope. For the three overnight segments, we reserved two sleeping compartments per night-- one for each of us. RailEurope charged a hefty premium for their services, they hassled me to complete the ticketing process well before the deadline they themselves had imposed when I first made the booking, they gave me no price concession at the time of ticketing despite a signficant decline in the dollar value of the euro between the time when I made the reservation and the time when the tickets were finally issued, and (last but not least) they didn't understand the configuration of the sleeping carriages well enough to put me and my traveling companion in adjoining compartments (which are designed to open into one another) on the first two overnight segments (Paris to Munich and Budapest to Bucharest) despite the fact that we had made our bookings three months before our actual departure and the sleeping carriages on these two trains were specifically designed to accommodate just such an arrangement. If I plan another rail journey of this magnitude in Europe, I will probably do my booking directly with Deutsche Bahn who have an excellent website and who got very high marks from some Brits we met who had used them for their ticketing.

We had arranged for the ticketing of our train travel from Istanbul to Tehran on the so-called "TransAsia Express" with Tur-ista in Istanbul. We picked up the tickets on the morning of our arrival into Istanbul at their office which was conveniently located in the Sultanahmet region of the city. They were completely reliable and professional and I am most happy to recommend them. One consideration regarding ticketing on the TransAsia Express: These are really two trains (a Turkish train from Istanbul to Tatvan) and an Iranian train (from Van to Tehran) together with a Turkish ferry for the four and a half hour journey across Lake Van. (There is an ancient baggage car that is offloaded onto the ferry which makes the complete journey from Istanbul to Tehran.) For the sake of privacy and security, we purchased four tickets in order to have an entire four person couchette to ourselves. For the Istanbul to Tatvan portion of the train, the berth assignments on the tickets corresponded with the carriage in which we were traveling. A while after our arrival in Van late on Friday night, there was a bit of a scrum in the passenger waiting room. We learned, just barely in time, that we were required to queue up to get our seat assignments from Van to Tehran; the assignments printed on our tickets were meaningless. If we hadn't figured this out, we probably wouldn't have had the full couchette we had reserved for ourselves for the last day of the journey.

The train journey itself was quite pleasant. The pictures below provide a very good flavor of the scenery we encountered during our six days of travel. All of the trains (excepting the Bucharest to Istanbul train) had dining or food service cars. Beer, wine and spirits were available on the Turkish portion of the TransAsia Express all the way to Tatvan. The first class sleepers on the first two overnight trains had showers in them. The Turkish portion of the TransAsia Express had both western and eastern toilets; no such luck on either the Van ferry or the Iranian portion of the train. Also, the bathroom facilities on both the Turkish and Iranian segments of the TransAsia Express didn't really make it possible to clean up in any meaningful way. Despite at least one report to the contrary, we found no showers on the ferry across Lake Van. (Hint: If you don't like going for three days without a good wash, much less a shower, bring some moist towelettes as well as some toilet paper.)

There was a time change before we arrived in Bucharest and, given that the train was an hour or so late, we had a fairly limited time in the Bucharest station to buy provisions for the train to Istanbul (which had no food service). This was complicated by the fact neither US credit cards nor cash euros were accepted by the small market in the station where we ended up getting some food and wine. When we went to head out to the train, just five minutes before it was due to leave, it had already been taken off the departures board. Very strange. Happily the train itself was still there but whatever you do, don't overlook the time change.

(Why couldn't I use my US credit card at the store in Bucharest? Because US banks, despite massive taxpayer funded subsdies, are unwilling to make the expenditures necessary to adopt the new technologies in use by banks elsewhere around the world. For more information, see this article about the unwillingness of US banks to issue credit cards using European smart chip technology.)

This journey took us through nine countries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran). As a result there were several border crossings. Everything went smoothly until we arrived at the Bulgarian Turkish frontier. The Bulgarians were fine but the Turks seemed to have no interest in being particularly helpful at the Kapikule border station. Specifically, after queueing up to get our passports stamped, we discovered that we had to go to a completely separate building some 50 meters to the east to first purchase a visa. A simple sign informing arriving visitors of this procedure would have saved a great deal of time and aggravation. Leaving Turkey at the Kapikoy border station wasn't much better. At this point the train was almost completely made up of Iranians and a few odd western tourists such as ourselves. We must have spent at least two and a half hours in the wee hours of the morning going through the exit protocols. One favorable note: The small store at the station provided an opportunity to exchange our remaining Turkish lira into Iranian rials at a favorable rate.

For me, however, the most memorable part of this overland adventure was yet to come. The Iranian authorities were far more organized in processing the arriving passengers than the Turks had been in processing these same passengers as they left Turkey. The Iranian authorities boarded the train and collected our passports shortly after we crossed the border; they began returning the passports about an hour and a half later with the entry stamps applied. All of the passports except mine, that is. I was, of course, the only American on the train. In preparing for this trip, I had consulted with a Swiss diplomat at the American interests section of the Swiss embassy in Tehran. Thankfully she had informed me that I would be required to provide fingerprints to the Iranian border authorities upon my entry into the country. As a result, I was not surprised when I was summoned to leave the train and enter the remote and deserted station there in the Azerbaijani wilderness of northwestern Iran. The process was achingly slow but exceedingly polite. As I waited to have them prepare the necessary paperwork to take my fingerprints they offered me a glass of tea which I gratefully accepted. When the fingerprinting was finally done, one of the officers made a great effort to assist me in removing the ink from my hands in the adjacent washroom. All of this had taken about a half an hour so far. We then returned to the room where I had been fingerprinted. A new fellow had shown up ostensibly for the purpose of interrogating me. (I could see that my passport-- sitting on the desk a few feet away-- already had the Razy border stamp in it so I assumed that this was a perfunctory undertaking.) Unfortunately this fellow didn't speak English at all well and he seemed to take a particular pleasure in trying to prove that I was entering Iran for some sinister purpose. (Lesson learned: Don't say you make your living consulting with state and local governments on financing infrastructure projects if the only word your interrogator understands is "government".)

All of this would have been fine if I hadn't noticed, some 45 minutes after I had left my couchette to come into the station, that the once a week train-- which had been visibly parked on the tracks behind me-- was pulling out of the station and resuming its eastward journey to Tabriz and Tehran. (As I would learn later, my high school buddy had drifted off to sleep while all this was happening and was completely unawares that his traveling companion had been abandoned at the station.) Meanwhile the unproductive interrogation continued amidst my best efforts to make myself understood. After a few more minutes the "interview" ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. I then was escorted out to the now empty platform where I waited for a good ten or fifteen minutes with no clue as to what was going to happen next. I had my passport back at this point and while all my luggage was still on the train, I had, thank goodness, all of my cash with me. Also, I figured that I was their problem now since I did, after all, have a valid visa. Nonetheless, looking back on this, I am somewhat amazed that I was utterly calm stranded as I was there in the wilds of northwestern Iran. Happily, the drama was a bit contrived, although I hadn't had a clue of this until one of the officers indicated that I should begin walking eastward along the railway tracks. While it did cross my mind that there might be some nefarious endgame in the works, in fact I discovered that the train had been stopped about a half kilometer away (just around a bend) and was waiting patiently for my return. Whether all of this was by design, I cannot say. But, upon reaching the train, I apologized to the conductor for adding to what was already a considerable delay in the schedule. He, for his part, welcomed me back on board very warmly and invited me to come have some tea in the dining car. Some 16 hours later we all arrived in Tehran, exhausted, dirty, and extremely late, but without, Insha'Allah, any further incident.

My subsequent travels in Iran reminded me in some ways of the old Soviet Union. Much of the structure of Iranian political society seems designed to suck the life out of the human spirit. The human spirit is, however, surprisingly resilient when oppressed. The train and ferry from Istanbul to Van revealed an Iranian community in exile. This portion of the journey provided a window into the country and its people that was detached, albeit only temporarily, from their contemporary political reality. The photos from the lounge car on the second day of the Istanbul to Tatvan train, while lacking the soundtrack of contemporary Iranian music which filled the space, paint a telling picture of the joyous vitality we witnessed among these travelers before they boarded the Iranian segment of the train for the final leg of their journey back to their homeland.

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